market share

While Android's rise to the top of the smartphone world has been nothing short of meteoric, it looks like the gravy train slowed somewhat at the tail end of 2011. Despite high-profile phone releases like the Motorola DROID RAZR and the Galaxy Nexus, not to mention a wider and wider selection of Android devices across all price points, Android adoption by new users slowed considerably according to Nielsen. While 62% of first-time smartphone buyers chose Android in October, by December only 47% did.

If Google saw three ships on Christmas day, on Christmas day in the morning, it might just need them to store all the cash it's going to make from a slew of new Android devices. Mobile analytics firm Flurry reports that combined activations for Android and iOS devices went from an average of 1.5 million a day (at least 700,000 Android smartphones, the rest divided among Android tablets, the iPhone, iPod and iPad) to almost 7 million on Christmas, making it easily the biggest day of the year for new smartphone and tablet users.

The free market, in all its terrible beauty, is Apple's most friendly enemy. After 18 months of being effectively the only tablet game in town (as a function of sales, anyway) the Cupertino giant's deathgrip on the slate market is starting to crack. According to IDC, Android's share of sales in the fourth quarter of 2011 will reach 40.3 percent of all tablet sales. That's up considerably since the third quarter, which has been variously projected as 20-30%.

A little verbal back-and-forth is normal among megacorproations, and since Nokia is on the defensive, they're not above dishing some out. Speaking with Pocket Lint, Nokia's director of Portfolio, Product Marketing & Sales Niels Munksgaard claimed that Android phones don't sit well with young people on account of its complexity. He went on to say that they don't want the iPhone, because everyone already has one. I'll give you ten points if you can find the error in that statement.

Android has been making a beeline to the top of the smartphone world for the last two years, and it looks like the little green OS that could has passed one of its biggest milestones yet. Research firm NPD says that Android runs on 53% of the smartphones being used in the US. No other OS comes close, with iOS in a distant second at 29%. If mobile operating systems were horses, Android would lead by about two and a half lengths.

Google chairman Eric Schmidt was on-hand at the LeWeb conference in (where else?) Paris, giving a pseudo state of the company report for Google's various properties. Highlights include the bold statement that Android is already beating iOS in most important metrics, and that Google TV would be on a majority of televisions by next summer. What?

Android is dominating the worldwide smartphone game, and while there are markets where it's even more dominant than it is in the United States, a combination of population and smartphone interest makes it one of the hottest markets on the planet. Android's continuing gains were highlighted by Nielsen last month, and comScore backs up their numbers with the latest reports on the US mobile market. According to comScore's math, 41.6 million Americans now use Android-powered smartphones.

No points for guessing who's on top in the smartphone race. For the time period of July, August and September, Android's U.S. market share grew from 39% to 42.8%, extending its lead once again. The Nielsen numbers match up pretty well with other statistical reports. The market is growing enough that Apple also increased its share, up to 28.3%. 44% of US mobile users now own a smartphone of one kind or another.

Even the most ardent of iOS evangelists can't argue with Android's worldwide success, to the tune of a full 50% sales market share as of last quarter. It looks like developers, specifically in the IT area, are taking notice. When IBM gave a survey to IT pros on which platform they were more interested in, Android won by a landslide, beating out both Apple and Microsoft in their relevant areas.

The global domination of Android has seemed inexorable for the last year and a half, and now new research tells us what we've long suspected. According to Gartner, more than half of all smartphones sold worldwide use Android as of the third quarter of 2011. To be exact, 52.5% of all new smartphones sold come with Google's OS in one form or another, with 60 million units and change being sold in the three months period. That's an almost 200% rise over the same time span last year.